Three of the formative revolutions that shook the early twentieth-century world occurred almost simultaneously in regions bordering each other. Though the Russian, Iranian, and Young Turk Revolutions all exploded between 1904 and 1911, they have never been studied through their linkages until now. Roving Revolutionaries probes the interconnected aspects of these three revolutions through the involvement of the Armenian revolutionaries—minorities in all of these empires—whose movements and participation within and across frontiers tell us a great deal about the global transformations that were taking shape. Exploring the geographical and ideological boundary crossings that occurred, Houri Berberian’s archivally grounded analysis of the circulation of revolutionaries, ideas, and print tells the story of peoples and ideologies in upheaval and collaborating with each other, and in so doing it illuminates our understanding of revolutions and movements.

About the Author

Houri Berberian is Professor of History, Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies, and Director of the Armenian Studies Program at UC Irvine.

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List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration

1. Connected Revolutions: Local and Global Contexts
2. “Active and Moving Spirits of Disturbance”: Circulation
of Men, Arms, and Print
3. The Circulation of Ideas and Ideologies: Constitutionalism
and Federalism
4. Connected through and beyond Reading: Socialism across
Imperial Frontiers
5. “The Egoism of the Cured Patient”: (In Lieu of a)
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"A magisterial study."
— Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies

"Roving Revolutionaries is a work of discovery and recovery solidly based on prodigious research and reading. Berberian whets one’s appetite for even more: a deeper exploration of the complexities of the revolutionary milieus in which these itinerant radicals found themselves; a more critical stance toward her actors; and a hard look at how their circuits, ideas, and activities contributed to the sad, tragic fates that both they personally and the people they hoped to save suffered."
— Journal of Modern History

"A successful hit and highly recommended."
— Connections

“A refreshingly innovative work. Drawing on untapped and largely unknown resources, it analyzes hitherto overlooked interconnections between three revolutions with erudition and panache.”—Houchang Chehabi, author of Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years

“Houri Berberian’s Roving Revolutionaries is as cosmopolitan and wide-ranging as its subject: the Armenian activists who criss-crossed Europe and the Middle East in the early twentieth century. The book barges across borders just as they did, tracking the steamships and railways they rode, the newspapers and weapons they carried, and the impact their networks and ideas had on uprisings in Russia, Iran, and the Ottoman Empire.”—Charles Kurzman, author of Democracy Denied, 1905-1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy

“Groundbreaking and theoretically sophisticated, this is a major contribution to global history and studies of revolution. Shattering the walls of insular history, Berberian puts the roving Armenian revolutionaries in their local, regional, global, and intellectual contexts.”—Bedross Der Matossian, author of Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire

Awards

CESS Book Award (History and Humanities) Shortlist 2020 2020, Central Eurasian Studies Society
SONA ARONIAN ARMENIAN STUDIES BOOK PRIZE 2021 2021, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
Society for Armenian Studies Outstanding Book Award 2019 2019, Society for Armenian Studies

About the Book